Biden made a fortune the last time he left the White House. Could a second windfall be waiting for him in 2025?
America’s economy is booming, with the stock market up 15% over the last six months and 24% in the last year. Yet much of the country doesn’t feel any richer, thanks to a host of underlying complications, including stagnating home values, flat wages, high interest rates and stubborn inflation. The man many people blame for those issues, rightly or wrongly, is affected by them too. Joe Biden’s net worth has stalled out at an estimated $10 million.
About two-thirds of the president’s fortune is locked up in real estate. He owns two homes in Delaware–a Wilmington mansion and a 4,800-square foot summer abode in Rehoboth Beach. The beach house was just the kind of property that surged during the pandemic, as pent-up city dwellers flocked to nature, boosting the value of Biden’s home to $4.5 million, $1.8 million more than he paid for it in 2017. But elevated interest rates have cooled housing prices over the past 12 months, and the values of Biden’s two homes have flatlined.
The president’s wages are also stuck in place–he earns $400,000 a year, the same salary as every Oval Office occupant since George W. Bush. Inflation has reduced the purchasing power of that paycheck, however. The $400,000 Bush made in 2001 is equivalent to $717,000 in today’s dollars. To loosen up some liquidity, Biden secured a $250,000 line of credit in 2022, drawing more than $100,000 on it by the end of 2023. The liability comes with a variable interest rate of prime plus 1.99%—meaning that the president’s borrowing costs increase as interest rates go up.
Despite the challenges, Biden is still just fine, especially considering his humble roots, which he has long touted. “Like an awful lot of folks growing up in a situation where—basically, middle-class family; three-bedroom, split-level home with four kids and a grandpop living with us,” Biden said at a campaign event in Detroit last month. “You know, we were okay. I mean, we didn’t have any money, but we were okay.”
Eventually, his dad found his footing selling cars, and Biden enrolled at the University of Delaware, before heading to law school at Syracuse University. After graduation, Biden returned to Delaware, where he joined a law firm, left to become a public defender, a part-time job where he supplemented his income by working as a defense attorney focused on civil litigation. By 1971, he left those jobs to open up his own practice.
BIDEN BUILDINGS
Long before he lived in the White House, Joe Biden had a fondness for grand homes—even if he didn’t always have the money to afford them.
Biden’s financial well-being has been tied to real estate for his entire adult life. Optimistic about his future and eager to establish a homestead for his young family, Biden went on a buying spree, beginning in 1969, spending much of his money and borrowing more. His father-in-law provided a loan for a home in Newark, Delaware. But before long, Biden had his eye on another one in Wilmington too. He convinced his parents to purchase the second property. Biden then bought their home and leased it out. He lived in a nearby cottage, managing a country club’s swimming pool in exchange for free rent. “I was prob
